GBA Collecting

[Sephiroth81]

Yeah, when so many fake carts flood the market, don't buy into it. Just get a flashcart, works perfectly.

[Shinobi]

Just bought a GBA micro and starting looking at grabbing some more GBA stuff, but most of the ebay stuff is super fake so I can barely trust it unless its boxed (and therefore expensive). Any tips?

Even a lot of the boxed GBA stuff is fake with the 4 page manuals and badly photocopied boxes. I used to find a lot of GBA games in charity shops and stolen goods generator.

There was some gba games like Metroid fusion up for grabs in the niceness plus thread maybe worth never bumping that.

[Antiriad2097]

Issue with fakes is that they dont save, and a lot of time its hard to tell via ebay until they arrive, which is just a ballache. Never had issues with refunds from fakes (as they people know they are doing it and dont want to get reported) but its just a giant waste of time.

Not entirely true. Some fakes have save issues, but none of mine have had any problems, only weird coloured plastics or dodgy labels give the game away.

[Nautical Rudie]

Ah fair, all I know is that every fake GBA cart I've bought hasnt saved and ive read elsewhere its a common issue with pirate carts

[Megamixer]

One way to avoid the fakes a lot of the time is to stay away from US copies with the ESRB ratings logos and the 'Advance' part of the Gameboy Advance on the box in black.

Not saying that fakes of Euro GBA games don't happen but for some reason, most of them are knock-offs of the US editions.

And in general I'd buy cart-only if you aren't fussed about having a pretty collection. I personally prefer the boxes but the GBA is getting into that NES/SNES kind of zone where people go mad for minty, boxed copies and it will cost you a lot more money.